Carabus auratus
Encyclopedia
Carabus auratus, the golden ground beetle, is a member of the family Carabidae, or ground beetles, native to central and western parts of Europe.
, each marked with three broad longitudinal grooves, are an iridescent gold-green colour, as are the head and thorax
. The legs, antennae
and mouth parts are orange.
Carabus auratus is to be found in fields and amongst bushes, particularly on loamy soil. On occasion it will climb into trees. Active during the day, it preys upon insect
s, snail
s and worm
s, which it seizes with its mandibles and sprays with a digestive secretion before consuming it. Carabus auratus can be welcome to farmers and gardeners, as it will feed upon pests such as the Colorado potato beetle
.
The larva
e hunt only at dawn. They moult three times before pupating in the soil and then emerging as adults in the autumn. The life expectancy is around two years; the beetle overwintering under the shelter of stones or moss.
Description
The flightless beetle reaches a body length of between 1.7 and 2 cm. The elytraElytron
An elytron is a modified, hardened forewing of certain insect orders, notably beetles and a few of the true bugs ; in most true bugs, the forewings are instead called hemelytra, as only the basal half is thickened while the apex is membranous...
, each marked with three broad longitudinal grooves, are an iridescent gold-green colour, as are the head and thorax
Thorax
The thorax is a division of an animal's body that lies between the head and the abdomen.-In tetrapods:...
. The legs, antennae
Antenna (biology)
Antennae in biology have historically been paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. More recently, the term has also been applied to cilium structures present in most cell types of eukaryotes....
and mouth parts are orange.
Carabus auratus is to be found in fields and amongst bushes, particularly on loamy soil. On occasion it will climb into trees. Active during the day, it preys upon insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s, snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...
s and worm
Worm
The term worm refers to an obsolete taxon used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly-related animals that typically have a long cylindrical...
s, which it seizes with its mandibles and sprays with a digestive secretion before consuming it. Carabus auratus can be welcome to farmers and gardeners, as it will feed upon pests such as the Colorado potato beetle
Colorado potato beetle
The Colorado potato beetle , also known as the Colorado beetle, the ten-striped spearman, the ten-lined potato beetle or the potato bug, is an important pest of potato crops. It is approximately 10 mm long, with a bright yellow/orange body and five bold brown stripes along the length of each...
.
The larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e hunt only at dawn. They moult three times before pupating in the soil and then emerging as adults in the autumn. The life expectancy is around two years; the beetle overwintering under the shelter of stones or moss.